Three Houses is the best Fire Emblem in a long time and comes with a lot of overall improvements and quality of life changes to the core gameplay. It is not necessarily an easier game but has a lot of anti-frustration features that will give a better indication of what the greatest threats are in a given turn. You can also rewind a limited number of times each battle to undo mistakes or fix something you just didn't see before committing.

You loved MM content but do you like playing 2D Mario and does it make sense to you to pay $50-60 for “unlimited” 2D Mario in 2019?

As for FE, do you even want to give it another shot?

They’re vastly different games so I feel like the choice is obvious but I don’t know your taste at all. Maybe the right answer is something else for you?

I grew up on Mario, my first being the NES one. I've played every 2d mario and loved them. I guess my concern is a curation standpoint. Do the levels stand up to Nintendo ones?

And I'd like FE, as I adore the FFT genre, but it looks very mechanics dense?

I havent played either but it sounds like you should just play FE:TH on easy? (if there is that option) I've been considering getting it and I suck at these kinds of games. As for the mechanical density I think it just seems overwhelming because you're watching videos of vertical slices and not being eased into the game at your own pace. You watch a video for most strategy games or JRPGs they can seem quite dense but they're generally pretty good at explaining things. (and often even over tutorialize)

I feel like Mario Maker (1&2) is only really worth getting if you have friends that are into it, most levels wont be up to the standard of other 2D Mario games and even the ones made by Nintendo seem more like instructional levels on what you can do with the tools, which is fine but it's a different kind of experience.

@boozak: If I remember correctly, FE Three Houses only has 2 difficulties at first, Normal and Hard. Normal-Casual shouldn't be too hard, though.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 :D

Fire Emblem is probably doing to have more to draw you in and occupy your time than Mario Maker. Unless you know Mario Maker is something you can just boot up and dive into.

I think you would have a good time with FE. I imagine you could relate to it as well since you play as a teacher in it. It's a really long game though.

I liked Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and Shadow Dragon.

Take that as you will.

I chose Three houses, I greatly enjoy the MM videos that GB produces but I have no desire to actually play it.

@sombre: hmm, I guess that is a toughie. haha

I haven't played it but my understanding with MM2 is that it still has issues with curation, limitations with filtering, and general discovery so you have to be willing to do the leg work yourself outside of the game. This is definitely something that annoyed me during the GOTY talk back when it was MM1 vs MGSV and I couldn't see how you let it off the hook then, and I don't see how you let it off the hook now. I'm sure there are fantastic levels out there but I find it much more appealing if it's pre-packaged. The other half of MM2 is the level creator so it would be a shame if that's not something you're going to touch.

With 3 Houses, I think the only real commitment I see is time. I don't think you need to worry about the mechanics being too dense, unless that's a major turn off for you. It's a big, long game. You'll make mistakes but you'll learn along the way and that's part of the fun of it. These games have gotten more and more newcomer friendly so I highly doubt they've designed 3H to let you screw yourself too bad.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments pal. I don't think I'd be going in on the creation stuff, I just don't have the time/brainpower to do that. I'd probably be checking out the "best" levels and then I worry I'd get bored after a while. I know that sounds redundant, with new stuff coming all the time, but with the curation problems...I dunno.

Well, thanks to EVERYONE who's voted and commented. I'm buying FE this morning, cheers lads. I'm sure I'll be talking about it in their forums